This invention relates to apparatus for treating fruit for packaging. More specifically, it refers to disintegrating apparatus for use with fruit in which a controlled pulverizing of the fruit to obtain pulp and juice for subsequent packaging.
It is known in the food industry that, when separating the pit or seed from the pulp of fruit, particularly before the fruit is cooked, breaking of the pit should be avoided. This is important because a broken pit may contaminate both the aroma and the flavor of the pulp by the action of the substances it contains. Also, in some cases, the pit can be used in other processes in which it is essential that the pit not have undergone heat treatment or cooking. Thus, it becomes important to obtain separation of the pulp and juice of the fruit from the intact pit, particularly where the pulp of fruits of the drupe type, such as peaches and apricots are involved, although the principle can be important with other types of fruit, such as quince and others as well.
Various types of apparatus have been proposed in the past, such as that of U.S. Pat. No. 2,516,963 to Derbenwick et al. in which the fruit is introduced into a rapidly spinning basket with the centrifugal force serving to tear the pulp from the pits of the fruit while the latticework of the basket is spaced appropriately to retain the pits within the basket. However, these and other prior art devices have generally been inefficient in the removal of the pulp from the pit. Additionally, such apparatus has frequently resulted in pulp and juice of lower quality than desired because of enzymatic and oxidation changes occurring during the disintegration process.